The League thinks that the state of Gotham's wealth gaps and corporate corruption/influence are unjust.

This is backed up by the fact that Bane is able to rally the poor on his side to revolt. The signs of revolt were already there (as they are in the US today) and it only took a charismatic extremist to galvanize them (and a situation in which they could stand a chance, and not be suppressed by military, etc)

it's a little muddled, as I could see how someone might think that he just rallied the inmates of Blackgate, but I think the idea is that he rallies the poor; Selina Kyle, her annoying little friend, etc, to believe in 'shared wealth'.

(the only thing the league weren't honest about was that they believed Gotham was already beyond saving and must be destroyed to start anew. The revolution was punishment to the rich, and a message to the rest of the Western world, not a revolution that they intended to carry out.)

I would agree that it's vague, although I just think of TDKR as a film that relies more on symbolism overall to make it's broader points.

In TDK, Batman and Gordon make the decision to "bury" evil and the truth, so in TDKR where a key theme is rising/uprising, we have this festering hatred bubbling beneath the surface of Gotham. The economic disparity of Gotham was dealt with pretty extensively in Batman Begins- it's the whole reason Joe Chill ends up killing the Waynes. So what we have in TDKR is a Gotham where those problems haven't gone away. Only now the upper crust of Gotham is in a self-congratulatory mode, proclaiming this to be "the best of times", hiding behind an oppressive new system that they justify using the face of their fallen white knight.

It's not hard to see why an environment like this would lead all the would-be Joe Chills of Gotham underground to serve Bane's army.

"Now this evil...rising from where we tried to bury it."

That's it in a nutshell. That's the point behind the League's return. Evil rises. As sure as heat (or "fire") rising, evil always resurfaces, and it shoves back harder. This is why there will always be a need for a Batman beyond Bruce Wayne. The beauty of that line is precisely in its vagueness. Gordon is seemingly delirious from morphine, and it's his guilt about the Harvey Dent lie that's really talking there. But he's right in a sense. The past is coming back to haunt both of them, and this especially true for Bruce although neither of them realize it. The League of Shadows in this film embody that idea of the eternal return of evil. In the sense that, yes they are the bad guys from film 1 who have come back with a vengeance, but also in that they infiltrate and exploit the existing ugliness in society and turn it into something even uglier for their own ends (which is very much the kind of evil The Joker represented). It's a culmination of of all the evil we see in the trilogy.

However, I would say that Gotham is somewhat 'cured' by the end of TDKR, or at least on the path to being so. Unlike before, with Dent and the 'peace-time', all the city's long-standing problems/evils (economic inequality) have had their chance to surface, however violently they did, and presumably will be addressed (as the city has seen what it could lead to). It's not unlike the psychology of a person. Deep and unresolved issues have to be resolved for there to be true peace, etc. ("things were always going to get worse before they got better").

Bruce has also given the city its true symbol of hope, shaking them out of apathy.

This is also why I'm fine with Blake receiving the mantle when he does. I don't think Gotham will need him for a long time (and by then he'll by all trained up). He will only need to step in if and when the city loses hope and the police are unable to do things themselves.

Their comic relations were a really sad affair. She was into him at least a little bit until she led a mission they were on for her father and then she became disgusted by the way he fought and totally turned against him. He still wanted her madly and badly, though, even after Ra's called off their engagement (which was forced upon Talia.)

The movie ignores most of the tale of woe and plucks a few elements out of it. Same thing for Talia as a character. They took a few things here and there and ignored others (like that she actually liked Batman for most of the character's existance). They ignored Ra's trying to set up Batman with Talia as well and taking over for him as well. In the movie, Bruce just comes on Ra's' radar because he ended up in one of his prisons, and he was targeted and tempted because of what he could offer to the League as a Wayne.

Some interesting posts here. My own take is not so grand - the LOS still saw Gotham as being too diseased and were still determined to impose their "sometimes you've just got rip it all down and start from scratch" philosophy upon the city, with Bane and Talia as collaborators on equal footing, working the master plan different angles (Talia on the inside, Bane from the outside).

That's your personal interpretation of it. Meaning your opinion. Nothing more. David Goyer said after TDK came out regarding whether Joker would have been in another movie, and I quote "If Heath were still around, and there was to be a third movie, I think it would be a no brainer".

[

You're a better man than me, asking posters to provide evidence substantiated by the movie has gotten tiresome. I now just read the conjecture and scroll to the next post, glad you're still carrying the torch though

I think OP is right. That this is one big drawback to the film. It can be explained by saying the LoS is a radical group, quite obviously villainous, and that they needed to be taken out because they had no rationality behind their actions. Which does an okay job at making the film respectable, but in no way makes half the villains in the franchise sympathetic or relatable. Instead it makes them seem purely like psychopaths (which it could be argued Batman's villains should be). So anyway, that along with Batman's retirement, Joker's absence and the anticlimax in general, made this the weakest installment of the three in my opinion.

"It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan." - Ras plan - a plan which was put into action at a different time of Gotham's history. Things changed, but Bane and co still charged ahead with it. To honour Ras, but what would the man himself think if he were alive?

"It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan." - Ras plan - a plan which was put into action at a different time of Gotham's history. Things changed, but Bane and co still charged ahead with it. To honour Ras, but what would the man himself think if he were alive?

Great question. Was this answered with Ras's words in the hallucination? He had something along the lines that sounded like he didn't approve of how Gotham had been living in peace based upon a lie. In other words, I'm guessing in Bruce's mind, he figures Ras would not approve of Gotham's peace time. I guess one could also argue that of course, that wasn't really Ras's words as it was a hallucination by Bruce.

Disagree. I don't think Bane would do all that for love. That's not how it comes across to me at all.

Fair enough. You're entitled to your opinion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MAKAVELI25

You're a better man than me, asking posters to provide evidence substantiated by the movie has gotten tiresome. I now just read the conjecture and scroll to the next post, glad you're still carrying the torch though

Well thanks, but it's not exactly a hard argument to make when the movie supports what you're saying

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ryan

Great question. Was this answered with Ras's words in the hallucination? He had something along the lines that sounded like he didn't approve of how Gotham had been living in peace based upon a lie. In other words, I'm guessing in Bruce's mind, he figures Ras would not approve of Gotham's peace time. I guess one could also argue that of course, that wasn't really Ras's words as it was a hallucination by Bruce.

If we put aside the stupidity of a hallucination telling Bruce something as factual as the nameless mercenary from the story being Ra's, the hallucination does state that Ra's believes that because everything that Batman achieved was based on a lie, that's why Gotham is beyond saving and must be allowed to die.

Which as I've said all along is the only way it makes sense to destroy Gotham if they knew that beforehand. Knowing Gotham's peace time is all based on a fraud. It's like a marriage only being happy because the husband is lying to the wife. It's all a sham.

__________________
"Sometimes I remember it one way. Sometimes another. If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice!"

They didn't know that when they came back to Gotham. Bane only discovered the Dent cover up by accident when Gordon was brought to his lair and they found his confessional letter on him. If they knew that BEFORE they came to Gotham, then it would have made a lot more sense. There was no reason for the LOS to destroy Gotham. The city was prospering in a peace time where crime rates were so low that the Mayor was going to retire Gordon.

Greedy businessman like Daggett are everywhere all over the world. Much like how every city has some degree of crime in it like the Mayor said. I don't see the LOS targeting every city in the world. It's a pathetic reason to destroy a whole city because of that. At least Ra's in Begins was all about destroying Gotham when it was overrun with crime and corruption. I could buy into his philosophy. I couldn't take Bane's plan seriously at all. Especially after Ra's and Joker's schemes had some logic to them.

I agree with you mostly, but I will say that with Bane, let's remember that this guy was basically evil with a dusting of good (feeling the need to protect Talia), and his whole plan was to torture an entire city by giving it false hope before reducing its entire population and infrastructure to ashes. When I think about that, and when I also consider how smart he was, it makes me think that he took advantage of his relationship with Talia to basically be a giant mass murdering prick because he was just that effed up in the head to begin with.

He knew Talia felt similarly about Gotham as her father did, so he worked for/with her so that he could command the League of Shadows for his own sick purpose of torturing and killing millions of people because that's just what he was all about. Meaning that Bane might not have even really believed in the LoS's philosophy, but rather he was abusing it to gain the power he needed to do what he did/almost did in the movie.

The real question is why Talia felt the same as her father. I suppose it's meant to be the obvious: Same genetics, similar living, both in with the league of shadows, and once she got out of the pit at around age 10 (I'm guessing that's about the age), she was also then raised/nurtured by her father. But even still, it gets back to the problem of why Gotham STILL needed to be destroyed at the time of DKR.

I mean the LoS would be phenomenally hypocritical to begrudge someone doing a necessary evil for the greater good, thus they should have no problem with what Bruce and Jim did to get the Harvey Dent Act.

So you hate Bruce for 'killing' your father. Okay. Go kill him, then. But why go along with Bane's wishes regarding the city and its people? Is she just as dark as he is, or did she think she was still doing the greater good? Did she really think she needed to kill millions of innocent to relatively-innocent people just to wipe out the corruption in the white collar community of Gotham? Especially in a city with no organized crime and apparently a pretty clean police force? A good mayor? Just seems inexplicable to me why she would allow Bane to do what he did given the state of Gotham at that time.

The real question is why Talia felt the same as her father. I suppose it's meant to be the obvious: Same genetics, similar living, both in with the league of shadows, and once she got out of the pit at around age 10 (I'm guessing that's about the age), she was also then raised/nurtured by her father. But even still, it gets back to the problem of why Gotham STILL needed to be destroyed at the time of DKR.

I mean the LoS would be phenomenally hypocritical to begrudge someone doing a necessary evil for the greater good, thus they should have no problem with what Bruce and Jim did to get the Harvey Dent Act.

So you hate Bruce for 'killing' your father. Okay. Go kill him, then. But why go along with Bane's wishes regarding the city and its people? Is she just as dark as he is, or did she think she was still doing the greater good? Did she really think she needed to kill millions of innocent to relatively-innocent people just to wipe out the corruption in the white collar community of Gotham? Especially in a city with no organized crime and apparently a pretty clean police force? A good mayor? Just seems inexplicable to me why she would allow Bane to do what he did given the state of Gotham at that time.

These are all good questions to ask.

For me, this is why it's important to keep in mind the global scope that the LOS always has to their plans. One doesn't plan to bring "the world's greatest city" to its knees and leave the rest of the world helpless to save it, and then nuke it anyway without considering what effect this might have on the world at large. The scope of the LOS's ideals stretch far beyond Gotham, yet they're fixated on Gotham because of it's symbolic weight as the shining beacon of Western civilization. It's the same idea behind them attacking Rome, IMO.

I can go on forever in this thread, but I'll keep it short. Talia was an idiot who had no idea what the goals were for the LoS or what her fathers intentions were. And the whole revenge thing? I've said this before but she would not have had a strong enough bond with her father to have cared about him after their falling out. And of course all she had to do was blow up the city, so really, she's an idiot.

Talia wanted to complete her father's intentions to destroy Gotham. Killing Bruce was just a reward for not obsessing over it. She had no plans to kill Bruce before she had finished with Gotham. If that was the plan than trying to get Bruce to leave with Talia or not have Bane kill him instead of putting him in the pit would have occurred. The siege of Gotham served two purposes: 1) Too show the world savagery of people, and 2) show to Bruce that everything he had done as Batman was in vain and that the people didn't believe as he did that Gotham could still be saved. Bruce returning gave Bane and Talia a chance to kill him themselves.

In the mind of LoS, the western civilization had already reached its pinnacle. That it was time to start anew. Ra's first plan was economics, to help show the greed of people and lack of sympathy towards one another. His second plan, was to release the weaponized fear toxin to show how cruel people are to one another. Finally, Talia and Banes plan was to hold siege of Gotham with the hint that they could live if the follow the rules that they had set. There plan is like the pit that Bane lived in and Talia had been born into. Brought on by the injustice of the world where money was power and power was everything. We see this through Dagget, his hunger for more money, teaming up with Bane to take control of Wayne enterprise. The defunding of the At Risk and Orphan Children foundation that directly lend teenagers and young adults into the grip of Bane.

The mob bosses and mofia crime may have been eliminated, not white collar, not random domestics violence. There was still a job shortage and people needing to find work. The part of crime that is harder to predict are crimes of passion. Things that are dictated by the environment that society creates. The need for food, financial troubles that divide families, or even the need to keep ones public reputation clean to stay in power.

The city of Gotham is symbol of the entire western culture. The solution to that is to destroy it. In BB and TDKR, they do this, with different plans, in a way to publicly show the world the need to change, to be anew. In the TDKR, Bane is the byproduct of the corrupt and injustice of the world.

I can go on forever in this thread, but I'll keep it short. Talia was an idiot who had no idea what the goals were for the LoS or what her fathers intentions were. And the whole revenge thing? I've said this before but she would not have had a strong enough bond with her father to have cared about him after their falling out. And of course all she had to do was blow up the city, so really, she's an idiot.

Ra's simply being her father and knowing about the League of Shadows is enough for Talia to forget about any of their past falling outs to exact "terrible vengeance" on Bruce Wayne and Gotham City as a whole. Plus now, with Ra's being dead, she is able to have Bane be part of this new LoS as well.

Ra's simply being her father and knowing about the League of Shadows is enough for Talia to forget about any of their past falling outs to exact ''terrible vengeance'' on Bruce Wayne and Gotham City as a whole. Plus now, with Ra's being dead, she is able to have Bane be part of this new LoS as well.

For a series hellbent on realism the parental/child bond between Talia and Ra's wouldn't nearly be as strong given the age the characters first met. Talia's father figure would be Bane, therefore her desire for 'revenge' would be almost non-existent.

For a series hellbent on realism the parental/child bond between Talia and Ra's wouldn't nearly be as strong given the age the characters first met. Talia's father figure would be Bane, therefore her desire for 'revenge' would be almost non-existent.

I think the bond was definitely strong seeing as how a ten year old Talia went to search the world for her father. If there wasn't a bond at all, Talia would not have done this, so I'm sure her mother spoke about Ra's to keep the memory around even when he wasn't physically.

I can go on forever in this thread, but I'll keep it short. Talia was an idiot who had no idea what the goals were for the LoS or what her fathers intentions were. And the whole revenge thing? I've said this before but she would not have had a strong enough bond with her father to have cared about him after their falling out. And of course all she had to do was blow up the city, so really, she's an idiot.

For a series hellbent on realism the parental/child bond between Talia and Ra's wouldn't nearly be as strong given the age the characters first met. Talia's father figure would be Bane, therefore her desire for 'revenge' would be almost non-existent.

Speaking as someone who was estranged from my grandfather due to a rift in the family until I was 10, I don't see it that way at all. It's a powerful experience to meet a parental figure so late in life. Part of you is terrified because they are larger than life, the other part of you laments the time you were denied together. It seems quite emotionally plausible to me that Talia would have all sorts of inner turmoil as a result of her father's premature death, including a nice dose of guilt for holding a grudge against him.

Speaking as someone who was estranged from my grandfather due to a rift in the family until I was 10, I don't see it that way at all. It's a powerful experience to meet a parental figure so late in life. Part of you is terrified because they are larger than life, the other part of you laments the time you were denied together. It seems quite emotionally plausible to me that Talia would have all sorts of inner turmoil as a result of her father's premature death, including a nice dose of guilt for holding a grudge against him.

I can only assume that when Bane was excommunicated from the LoS that Talia went with him, to me that says her bond was always with Bane which makes sense given he was their protecting her for the first dozen years of her life, any child shrink would tell you that no matter how much blood they shared Talia and Ra's relationship would never be as strong as her relationship with Bane. Ultimately the more plausible outcome wouldn't be someone who would seek revenge, it's someone who would accept what happened and would move on because her actual parental figure, ie Bane, is still alive. Guilt about a falling out? Perhaps, but not to the extent of planning to finish what he started, it's doesn't make any logical sense from a realism perspective anyway.